Colin Kahl, Biden nominee for senior Pentagon post, faces GOP scrutiny

WASHINGTON (SBG) -- — When he appears for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Dr. Colin Kahl, the former Obama-Biden aide nominated to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy -- one of the most influential jobs in the sub-Cabinet -- will face pointed questions from committee Republicans about the nominee's long record of partisan attacks and foreign policy positions.

"We are very much aware of this nomination moving forward," said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a member of the Armed Services Committee and the first lawmaker to oppose Kahl's nomination publicly. "There are tremendous concerns...Is this somebody who's really going to encourage a strong national defense and standing against China, pushing back on North Korea, making certain Iran does not get a nuclear weapon?...I'm not so sure."

Now a senior fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Kahl served in the latter years of the Obama administration as national security advisor to then-Vice President Biden. Prior to that, Kahl had risen to deputy assistant secretary of defense, one in a series of high-profile foreign policy jobs following his graduation from Columbia University with a PhD in political science.

Veterans of the national security apparatus said the undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon typically serves as the Defense Department's representative on the Deputies Committee, a high-level working group that shapes the workflow and options considered by the White House National Security Council and, consequently, by the president.

As a frequent surrogate for President Obama on cable news during the 2012 election, Kahl launched sharp attacks on that year's Republican presidential nominee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney -- now the junior senator from Utah, and someone who get to cast a vote on Kahl's nomination. "The world is complex," Kahl tweeted that fall, "and Romney doesn't get that." He accused the president's Republican opponent of having "zigged and zagged all over on Afghanistan" and denounced Romney as someone willing to "say anything to get elected, no matter how reckless."

"Kahl is a political operator," said one conservative activist working behind the scenes to mobilize opposition to the nomination.

Other Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, such as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., plan to question Kahl sharply on his foreign policy positions, particularly relating to Iran. A lengthy dossier of Kahl's public pronouncements circulated by Republican Hill staffers in advance of Thursday's hearing records the nominee's prior opposition to most measures proposing stiffer sanctions against the Islamic regime; that included an occasion when the legislative impetus for such measures came from Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, whose proposed bill Kahl dubbed a "bad idea."

Kahl also opposed the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization and has argued that frequent statements by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, labeling the use of nuclear weapons a sin against Islam demonstrated the regime's willingness to abandon its longstanding quest for a nuclear weapons capability. "I think that they are creating a narrative," Kahl testified in March 2012, "that would allow them to step back and that we should explore that with diplomacy."

Published reports have also cast Kahl as the prime mover in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to strip the Democratic Party's 2012 convention platform of any reference to "Jerusalem."

Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee met late Tuesday afternoon to decide next steps on the Kahl nomination. Democrats' control over the upper chamber, where Vice President Kamala Harris can break any tie votes, means the Mideast scholar will likely be confirmed in the end -- although one Republican Hill staffer predicted Kahl would emerge "bloodied" by the process. It was unclear how Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Ok., the panel's ranking Republican, would vote. Inhofe has previously expressed "serious concerns" about Kahl, and a congressional source said Tuesday that the senator was "leaning 'no.'"

Contacted by Sinclair, the Biden administration appeared unwilling to defend Kahl publicly. The Defense Department referred inquiries to the White House. The White House, in turn, provided contact information for two officials -- one in the White House, the other at the Biden-Harris transition office -- who did not respond to a request comment.